A novel technique is being developed for detecting HIV from body fluids such as serum, plasma and culture supernatants of infected cells. H9 cells were infected with HIV-MN strain and the culture supernatants collected on day 4. p24 antigen was measured in the supernatant. Virus particles present in the fluids were concentrated by capture with antibody coated beads. Particles of uniform size were coated primarily with anti IgG antibodies and then reacted with anti p24 and anti gp120 separately, both being IgG class antibodies. After incubation for 16 hours in the cold, the beads were washed with buffer and stored at 4 C. Culture supernatants were then incubated with the beads in the cold for 16 hours. The beads were washed twice and treated with guanidine isothiocyanate buffer to strip off the virus. RNA from the stripped material was prepared and used for RT-PCR using SK 38/ 39 primers and amplified products were hybridized with P-32 labelled SK 19 probe by liquid hybridization technique. In our preliminary experiments, virions were enriched with magnetic beads coated with anti HIV antibodies and showed strong positive signals on an autoradiographic blot. This method is being adapted to detecting virus in the serum and plasma of infected individuals in an effort to derive sensitivity and specificity. This technique will be of use in detecting virus as well as in characterizing virus isolates by PCR sequencing directly from the bead.